


Tectonics

by Rynfinity



Series: Out of the Mouths of Babes [21]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - Human, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Past Child Abuse, Physical Abuse, Sibling Incest, Substance Abuse, Verbal Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-27
Updated: 2014-10-03
Packaged: 2018-02-19 01:06:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2368712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rynfinity/pseuds/Rynfinity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The letter is still staring him in the face when he finishes cleaning up.  Thor stares at the envelope a bit longer.  It <i>is</i> addressed to both of them; there's really no reason he shouldn't go ahead and open it.  Even if something about it just feels wrong.</p><p> </p><p>This is a direct sequel to Risk and will make the most sense read after its predecessors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Some surprises are a little hard to cope with.

"Have a good one," Thor calls to Steve as he unlocks the door of the apartment, barely succeeding at juggling his bag in one hand and their mail and his keys in the other.

He shivers. It's sloppy out today, the kind of wet, slushy messy nastiness he really doesn't like about this time of year. Thor would cheerfully move somewhere warm year-round - the cold does nothing for him, despite his decidedly northern European heritage - except for how badly Loki would be disappointed. His brother loves cooler weather; baggy sweaters and long wool coats and gloves and scarves. Skin-tight jeans tucked into black boots. Snowball fights, as long as Thor isn’t the one winning.

Everything about winter, really.

Loki comes in from the elements in the evening, fresh from his walk home with color high on his cheeks and snow wetting his lashes, and Thor can't imagine taking any of that away from him. Plus, this town is a nice enough place... they've found a home here, one where no one pays any mind to their unusual circumstances. In trade for all of that, Thor is willing to tolerate the gross weather.

Plus, the other seasons are pretty decent.

He’s worn out and thirsty; without bothering to take his coat off he goes right for the kitchen. Thor sets his bag down and tosses keys and mail together onto the island. The endless sea of catalogs - the holidays are relentless; they find you no matter how hard you're not looking for them - he shoves carelessly aside. The rest is about as exciting: bills, from the looks of it. He's about to stick them in what Loki calls the _leech box_ and deal with them another day when – as he’s taking a quick look through the pile for any sneaky, official-looking junk mail - one envelope in particular catches his eye.

It's just a plain white thing, computer-printed, with a return address from their (his, Loki’s) former hometown that Thor doesn't recognize. What makes it stick out amidst the bills is its stamp: actual, cancelled first class postage. The envelope is addressed to both of them, with Thor's name on the top line and Loki’s full name printed out just underneath. He flips it over; the back is blank, with the usual inky smears and smudges mail tends to pick up during cancellation and handling.

Huh.

Thor shifts his feet; his boot squeaks against the tile. Shit. He looks down, belatedly realizing he's absent-mindedly tracked what has now melted into a brackish puddle into the kitchen. He toes his boots off gingerly, taking care not to step in the mess in his stocking feet, and marches his dirty footwear back out into the entryway.

He squats, more than a little reluctantly. Getting down on his hands and knees still isn't quite as easy as it should be, but Loki will have his head if the whole thing is not properly dealt with. And it’s only fair; as much as his brother likes winter, stepping in cold water unexpectedly is pretty much no one’s cup of tea.

The whole process of walking home takes his brother longer on snowy nights anyway, especially now that Loki often stops to grab something to cook along the way, so it's not like there's anyone home to hear his grunting and groaning anyway.

~

The letter - or whatever it is - is still staring him in the face when he finishes blotting and hauls himself back up. Thor pitches his handful of soggy, gray-brown paper towels into the garbage, wincing at the wet plop, and stares at the envelope a bit longer. It _is_ addressed to both of them; there's really no reason he shouldn't go ahead and open it. Even if something about it just feels wrong.

After another minute or two spent waffling Thor sighs. He picks up the letter and grabs a bottle of sparkling water from the refrigerator - since he's started working out again, he's been trying to limit his soda consumption to a level that wouldn't feed an entire third world country - and wanders over to flop on the couch.

It takes literally seconds before Mac and Marci are curled together beneath his upraised knees. Loki is clearly right about how cats are friendlier in the winter.

~

They don't have a letter opener, because- reasons. Thor picks the envelope open with his thumb and extracts two neatly-folded pages. He unfolds them, smoothing the paper against his thigh-

-and then recoils from the thing as though it has bitten him.

It's handwritten, painstakingly. Old school. And the writing? Even after all this time, Thor would recognize Odin's sprawling longhand anywhere.

Fuck.

The draw of putting the whole business straight into the shredder is all but overwhelming. He can't, though; if it's a threat of some kind and he lets what could be their only opportunity for prior warning slip through his cowardly fingers, Thor will never forgive himself. Fuck. He swallows down his nausea and stretches awkwardly to collect the scattered pages from where they’ve fallen.

Moving like that – twisting, reaching - still hurts.

It seems appropriate, somehow.

_My sons_ , Odin’s letter begins. Thor pauses for a moment. His heart feels like it’s going to pound right out through his ribcage. He forces himself to read on anyway.

_I owe both of you, separately and together, a greater apology than words alone can hope to convey. However, I recognize that you have felt it necessary to protect yourselves from the threat I posed to you, and I respect your decision. I hope you can each find it in yourself to not put this aside without reading it, as there is something I simply must share with you._

Thor stops for a moment and shuts his eyes, willing himself not to crumple the sheets - just paper, just words - into a ball, out of nothing but stubborn obstinance, and fling them across the room. 

_Please know that I have finally found and accepted the help I should have taken it upon myself to seek out many years ago_ , Odin continues, _back when both of you were very young. I recognize now that I cannot control my drinking, and that I cannot control - in fact, I barely know - the person I become when I fail to do so. I’m sure it comes to no surprise to either of you that I am an alcoholic; it no longer comes as a surprise to me as well._

_By not getting appropriate help when you were children, I have done you both a grave and irreparable disservice. While this may be most obvious in Loki's case - Loki, I simply had no business raising a sensitive, fragile child who had already suffered the sort of abandonment no one should have to endure… and at such an inconceivably young age, besides - I have failed Thor as well. You were both fortunate to have your mother's unwavering love, so as perhaps not to have found yourselves completely adrift, but nothing she did (nor could have done) served in any way to excuse or mitigate the damage I myself wrought._

_You have endured - both at my hands directly and through the countless things I let happen and/or from which I failed to protect you - many needless horrors. I left you to struggle alone against things you should never have even been faced with. Not, at least, if I had done my job as your father. That you have both grown into strong, capable men is a true testament to your own nature; I can for sure take no credit, thanks to mine._

It isn't until he flips to the second page, letting the first fall unnoticed against his chest, that the writing blurs and Thor realizes he's crying. He blinks away the tears and steels himself to plow on... if nothing else, he owes it to Loki to read the entire thing. First. He is the older one, after all… the one who should have protected his little brother.

_I owe you both a special apology for the awful way in which I have responded to your adult choices. While I may not understand the specific ways in which you have chosen to seek_ \- here, Odin had scribbled out _solace_ and replaced it with - _comfort in one another, I realize now that my own biases convey upon me no right to judge you accordingly._

_It sickens me to realize I have treated - for the whole of your lifetimes, when I really think about it - our city's most heinous criminals with more compassion and fairness than I have my own children._

_I do not deserve your forgiveness, and I do not ask for it on my own behalf. That said, I hope you are able - eventually - to set your rage aside and find a way within your own hearts to offer up forgiveness anyway. Again, I ask this not for myself; rather, you both deserve a better life than you will ever find locked away in the mental prison that comes of hating me._

_Thank you for reading this letter, and for providing me with the impetus I needed – the necessary drive I had long, long failed to find within myself - to begin my journey to recovery. I love you both, despite my complete failure to behave accordingly, and I wish you nothing but the best._

_Yours,_

_Odin._

Thor lets the second page drift forward to rest atop its partner. He feels- nothing, actually. It’s like he’s dead inside. Numb. Paralyzed. Frozen, and not from the shitty weather. There was a time this would have been all he wanted - for Loki, especially - and yet, now that he has it, he can't even begin to take it in.

After a few minutes he reads letter through again. Which doesn’t change anything; he’s still blank inside, just a whole lot of emptiness where his feelings ought to be. Thor ultimately struggles to his feet and plods back into the kitchen, letter in hand. After quite a long bit of just standing there dazed, he folds the thing neatly and sets it on the counter.

Maybe this is how Loki feels… fractured, fragmented. Lost. Adrift is a good word, except for how Odin has used it already.

~

Thor is at the sink, having only just managed to pull his scattered thoughts back together enough to splash cold water on his face, when his brother calls a cheery "hi, baby" in from the apartment door.

Loki rounds the corner, just as Thor unthinkingly spins to face him, and stops abruptly. "Thor," he says, in a different tone of voice altogether. "What is it? What's wrong?"

“You know,” Thor starts, and then has to stop and swallow a couple of times before he’s able to continue. “I don’t even know how to tell you.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Redux; Thor freaks, Loki doesn't.

“Huh. Good for him,” Loki says when he gets to the end of Odin’s letter.

Thor isn’t at all sure what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t that. “You’re okay with it,” he asks, voice breaking a little between _with_ and _it_. “Seriously?”

Loki looks across the corner of the counter at Thor, forehead wrinkled. He looks- concerned. Not freaked out, just- concerned. “Yeah, I’m fine with it.” He shrugs. “I mean, it doesn’t really change anything for _me_ , but it’s not _about_ me, now, is it?” One corner of his mouth quirks up in a tiny smile. “Isn’t that one of the lessons you’re always trying to teach me?”

Thor shakes his head like a wet dog. None of this is making any sense. “Why are you not upset,” he asks his brother. “Why are you- why-?”

“Am I missing something,” Loki asks, tucking Thor’s hair behind his ear and really, really looking at him. “I must be. What else happened?”

This isn’t enough? “Nothing,” Thor tells his brother. “I just- this was kind of a shock to me.” Not kind of. “Actually, it was a big shock. A huge fucking Godzilla of a shock. I almost puked just seeing his handwriting.” He reaches out and snaps the paper. “And where- what- where did this all _come_ from?”

Loki’s face softens into a sweet, relieved-looking smile. It’s not a look Thor sees on his brother often, and he has just presence of mind enough to regret how this particular smile has come at a time when he really can’t appreciate it. “You don’t get what this is about, do you,” Loki asks him. “He’s doing some sort of twelve-step thing,” his brother continues when Thor twitches off something halfway between a headshake and a shrug. “You know, like AA or something.”

“AA,” Thor repeats, mostly to himself, which of course doesn’t prevent his brother’s inevitable (if brief) descent from helpful into patronizing: “Alcoholics An-,” Loki starts to explain, a little more slowly and clearly than strictly necessary, and Thor has to take a quick breath and remind himself not to make anything worse by taking his stress over Odin out on his brother.

“Yes, thank you Loki, I know what AA means,” Thor cuts in, a little coldly. Actually, he doesn’t do nearly as well at not sounding like an asshole as he’d hoped to.

Loki shoots him a look but must opt to let the whole thing go. Thor knows he’ll have to thank his brother – sincerely – for taking the high road later, when he’s up to it.

“I guess I’m-.” Loki squares up the pages and folds the letter, carefully, before setting it back on the counter. He comes around the corner of the island and leans gently against Thor’s shoulder. “This is more familiar to me, I guess,” he explains. “I have never personally felt like the twelve-step approach was the right way, not for me, but it seems to be a good fit for a lot of people. If it’s working for Odin,” he continues, shrugging against Thor’s upper arm, “and I guess it must be, because this whole bit about _making amends_ is quite a ways into the whole process, then who am I to judge?”

Thor takes a step away from his brother and turns so they’re facing one another. He’s breathing too fast. He just can’t understand how this is so _easy_ for Loki. For anyone. “So that’s it? You’re just going to forgive him and be done with it, like none of the shit he pulled ever happened?” He gulps in another mouthful of air, trying to calm down. To lower his voice; his brother is frowning again. “After what he did to you? To us? I don’t even know the fucking _half_ of it and I can’t handle this. I don’t- I can’t- I just don’t see where you are even _coming_ from.”

“Ohhhh,” Loki says, like a lightbulb went on somewhere. “No, Thor. That’s not how it works at all. No,” he says again. “I’m not _just going to forgive him._ Although he _is_ right, you know; eventually we should try,” he continues, as Thor starts to protest, “because it’s ourselves we hurt by not letting it go. But in the end it’s not about that.”

“Huh?” Thor wrinkles his nose. The whole conversation is still completely nonsensical.

Loki makes an odd little face. “This is _his_ process. Odin’s. Nothing to do with us, really. We don’t have to do anything. Addiction involves a lot of blame and denial, you know...” Loki looks down at his own hands, first the palms and then the backs. He traces a slender, black-nailed finger up under the loose cuff of his sweater, the left one, along one of the twinned scars from his original suicide attempt that Thor likes to pretend aren’t there.

“Part of healing,” Loki goes on, “is admitting that you’ve done the people close to you a lot of harm. Because as much as it feels like everything in the universe is _all about you_ , it isn’t.” He smiles, what looks like sadly. Wistfully. “To me, that was a stupidly hard realization to get my head around. So, part of me is really glad for Odin that it’s coming more easily for him.” His smile twists into a smirk, sharp and deadly. “But never fear, the rest of me would still cheerfully see him rot in hell.” He reaches out to touch the back of Thor’s forearm, just above the wrist; his fingers are cold from the snowy walk home, even through the dense fabric of Thor’s own sweater. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

Thor still doesn’t know. “I feel nothing,” he starts, but that isn’t quite right. “Um, I feel tense and anxious and- and like something awful is going to happen. But I don’t feel _anything_ about- about what he wrote. At least,” he amends, “I didn’t at first. Now I’m starting to feel kind of pissed about it.” He collects Loki’s hands into his own, trying to warm them. “But at first I felt blank. Dead. Is that how you feel? Sometimes, I mean,” he corrects himself, “not right this second.”

Loki lets out a sharp little bark of a laugh. “Oh, fuck no. I have the exact opposite problem. When something upsets me – and plenty of times when nothing does – I’m so full of feelings it seems like I’ll have no choice but to explode. Like no one person can possible feel that much and keep on living.” He wiggles his fingers in Thor’s hands. “At least we average out to normal? Hey, smile for me,” he pleads when Thor doesn’t laugh it the joke. “You’re scaring me.”

“I’m sorry,” Thor says, because he is. And he’s scaring himself, too. “I’m having a really hard time with this.” He swallows. Yet again. Sometimes he hates how he feels everything so _physically_. “I wish I wasn’t.”

His brother pulls one hand free and reaches up to touch his face, very softly. Loki’s fingers have, thankfully, finally gotten a little warmer. “I wish you weren’t too, Thor.” His brother sighs. “But we don’t always get what we wish for, do we?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We get a little glimpse into the distant past. If the glass is rose-colored, it's only from the blood.

_"B-b-but I didn't mean to," he wails, crying so hard he can barely speak. His fists are clenched into tight round balls. One fist drips big red drops onto the chunks of broken glass he knows are all around his feet. From the hurt of it, his hand isn’t the only problem; both his knees must have boo-boos too._

_He doesn't dare look down at them. Or at his hand, or at the glass. He doesn’t dare look at anything, except his daddy's red, angry face. Which is just above him, where daddy has squatted down to be able to yell at him right here._

_"You didn't mean to," his daddy thunders. This close Daddy’s voice is so loud Thor wants to clap his hands over his ears. He clenches his fists even harder; if he puts his hands over his ears he knows he will get spanked and he's so, so scared of that._

_The spankings might be the scariest. He’s a lot more scared of them than he is of daddy yelling. And daddy yelling is pretty scary._

_"I'm warning you," his daddy yells even louder, so loud Thor’s ears ring. "I'm sure your brother didn't mean to either, but his mommy and daddy were so sick of him not meaning to every time he broke something that they finally gave up and left him."_

_Thor blinks rapidly. He didn't know that, didn't know Loki had been left because of not meaning to. Because of breaking things. Because of being a bad boy. A bad son._

_He doesn’t mean to squeeze his eyes shut. He doesn’t. It just happens somehow._

_"LOOK AT ME WHEN I'M SPEAKING TO YOU," his daddy roars, like the lion Thor’s scared of at the zoo, and this time his little hands do fly up to his ears._

_His daddy catches hold of his arms before his hands quite make it to his head, one wrist caught in each strong, giant fist, and shoves Thor backwards. "Is that what you want," he demands, still loud enough to hurt, as Thor stumbles and falls hard on his bottom among the bits of broken glass. "IS IT?!"_

_Thor doesn't even hear her come in, not over his daddy's voice and his own bawling. When his mommy lays a gentle hand on his shoulder, he squeals._

_"Odin, stop," his mommy says from where she's kneeled down beside Thor. She sets him back on his wobbly legs and then scoops him into her arms, glass and big red drips and all. "Out. Now. I'll speak to you later."_

_Thor has his wet, howling face buried in mommy's front; he doesn't see his daddy go, but he sure hears the stomping. All of a sudden he catches on. "NO!! NO," he shrieks. "Don't let him leave me like Loki's mommy and daddy. NO!!"_

_"Shh," she soothes, rubbing his back gently. "Daddy isn't leaving. He's sick today, honey. When he's sick, he says things that aren’t true." She scoots Thor up a little to look at his face. "Remember in the summer, when your little brother was sick? When he thought you were a puppy?" She smiles and gives the side of his face a quick kiss. “Do you remember that?”_

_Thor scrunches up his nose and thinks, hard. He does remember the time she means, now that she’s said it; his little brother all white and hot and sticky, trying to pet Thor's hair with both his tiny hands. Thor nods eagerly, then has another thought that makes him start to cry all over again. "But Loki is never mean when he's sick," he protests. "Daddy- daddy is mean."_

_"Not on purpose, sweetie," his mommy tells him. "Daddy loves you, even when he’s sick. I promise.” She lifts him under the arms and looks him over. “Now let's get you cleaned up, my brave little man."_

_~_

_Even though he knows brave little men don't cry, and he's just giving daddy that much more badness to leave him over, Thor can't help himself. His lip is already quivering before his mommy even gets anywhere near his knees. By the time he's naked and covered with bright little bandaids he's just a wet, sobbing lump on the kitchen counter._

_"Shh," she hushes him again as she sits him in the highchair – it used to be his, but it’s Loki’s now and he barely fits anymore - and opens the broom closet. His mommy collects the little green broom, the one with the Thor-sized handle, and the blue scoopy thing where all the broken stuff goes. "I'll be right in here,” she tells him, smiling. “I just need to get the mess before someone else steps in it. We wouldn’t want your brother getting hurt, would we?”_

_He doesn’t. Even if Loki was bad enough to get left, Thor doesn’t want to hurt him. Not ever. Loki is never mean._

_Thor is brave and strong until his mommy disappears into the den, behind the heavy door, but then he panics and scre-_

~

Fuck! Holy fuck.

Thor leaps onto the cold floor, heart racing and breath coming in huge gasps. She can’t just leave him. She can’t.

~

It takes him a good minute - long enough for Loki to turn the light on, sit up in bed all bleary-eyed, and ask "what's going on" in a scared-sounding voice that's rough with sleep - to fully realize where he is.

Not in the big, bright kitchen. Not in the house. Not with his parents, whom he long ago stopped thinking of as mommy or daddy. Not even in the same state.

He’s in his own grown-up bed, with his own grown-up brother. Well, he was, until just now.

Frigga is dead, and Odin isn’t here, and it’s Thor and Loki who did the leaving.

~

"Fuck," he says, aloud this time. "I just had a fucking horrible dream."

Loki rubs his eyes with his fists and then tries in vain to corral his messy hair. “I’m sorry,” he says, hair caught in one hand. “Want to talk about it?”

He doesn’t, really, but he needs to know it isn’t true. Thor takes a big lungful of air and blows it out. “Um,” he starts in, pacing from the balcony to the far wall and back again. “I was a little kid. Something about me breaking something and getting-.”

“Wait. Oh, right. Yeah yeah yeah,” Loki cuts in, very awake and alert now. His memory, when it comes to everything about their childhood, runs circles around Thor’s. That’s even with all the drugs and shit. “Yeah,” he says again. “I remember that. You broke some stupid trophy of Odin’s, and he threatened to ship you off. Like _Loki’s parents_. You cried so much it even scared tiny kid me. And you got- well, it must have been blood all over the carpet in the den. At the time Frigga told me it was juice. Huh.”

Thor’s mind goes white and blank for a moment. Not the _ripping someone limb from limb_ sort of blank; the _shorted out, not working anymore_ kind. He stops pacing and just stands there.

“Thor? Are you okay?” Loki sounds- afraid, kind of, and Thor doesn’t want to be the cause of that.

“I’m fine,” he lies. “I just thought- I didn’t realize it had actually happened.”

Loki shrugs. “I’m pretty sure it did. If you don’t remember, who else would have told me about it?”

“That’s fucked up,” Thor says.

“Yeah.” His brother smiles, but it doesn’t reach the eyes. “Another day in paradise?”

Thor shudders. “How can he ever think we would forgive him,” he growls. “What gives him the fucking right?”

“Shh,” Loki soothes – it’s him this time, and not their mother. “It’s over. You don’t owe him anything. Not anymore.” He gets to his feet, graceful and naked and flushed pink from having just been tucked under the covers, and takes both of Thor’s hands in his own. “Come back to bed. It’s only 2:00 AM. Please?” He gives Thor a little tug. “It’s warm in here. Come with me.”


	4. Chapter 4

"I don't see how you can find anything to smile about in this," Thor protests. It's been all day - a packed-solid workday, unfortunately, where he couldn't have crammed in a phone session with his therapist even if he'd been dying - and he still hasn't even begun to shake off last night's nightmare. It sucks, and yet here sits Loki across the low table, because his brother always likes to eat sushi _the way it was intended_ , grinning like an idiot.

"I'm not laughing at you," Loki assures Thor. "I'm totally sorry you're feeling shitty." His forehead wrinkles, and he almost pulls off a completely straight face before evidently losing the battle and beaming again. "It's just that I've been so _alone_ all these years. And now I can hold out a tiny sliver of hope that- that I'm not going to be alone forever."

"I'm not going to leave you," Thor reminds Loki, yet again. His brother waves him off with both flappy hands before he can continue.

"No no, that's not what I meant." Loki hefts his chopsticks and scoops up big bite of california roll, which he still swears to Sif isn't sushi every chance he gets but has taken a clear liking to just the same. "You let go of the past," he goes on when his mouth is mostly empty again, "so promptly and completely it's like it never existed." He sighs and sets the chopsticks neatly atop their rest. "Whereas for me it's all right there, forever and ever. There were bad parts, sure..." - Loki tends to talk with his hands when he's really passionate about a topic, and this is no exception; it’s a good thing he’s put the chopsticks down - "but there were a lot of good parts, too."

"Probably," Thor concedes. There must have been; they're alive, after all.

"And when you don't remember at all, I feel- erased?" Loki isn't smiling anymore, and this totally isn't the way Thor wanted to achieve that. "Plus, it's crazy-making, you know? When I'm the only one who remembers." He picks up his chopsticks again and spears a choice chunk of ahi, right off Thor's plate this time.

"Ah-ah," Thor chides, but his brother is already chewing.

"See food," Loki teases, opening up to show off a mess of hand-chewed tuna tartare. "Sorry," he adds, looking- not particularly apologetic. "So, anyway, it was just nice to have my past - _our_ past - validated." He sighs. "There's no way anything as big and golden as you ever has to worry about erasure, I'm sure."

Probably not. "I guess," Thor concedes. "It's not all fun forgetting everything, though, you know." He gives Mac's little - but getting less so with each passing week, it seems - orange paws a gentle push. "No feet on the dining table," he singsongs. He's heard his brother do it so much it’s starting to feel natural. "You know the rules."

"How so," Loki asks, ignoring the cat-talk. He shifts on his pillow and Thor gets a brief glimpse of Marci curled up in the basket of his cross-legged lap. "I feel like forgetting would be pretty fucking handy."

It probably would be, if his body was even half as good at it as his conscious mind seems to be. "My guts remember," Thor says sadly. "My whole body, maybe." He reaches out and scoops Mac up, setting the cat - Mac still acts like a kitten, but he's tall and gangly now - in his own lap. Which doesn't seem to work anywhere near as well as it has for his brother. Marci is _calmer_. "Seemingly random things make me sick, or anxious. Angry." He swallows and tightens his grip on Mac the Wriggly. "Lie still! And when it happens it feels like- like I've lost control over myself. Over my body."

"Mm," Loki hums, then wrinkles his nose. "Yeah, I can see how that would suck." He takes another big mouthful of california roll and chews diligently. Thor watches as he looks to be lost in thought. "Well," Loki adds at last, eyes wide and serious, "I'm here if you need a sanity check." And then he snorts. "How fucked up is that, baby?"

~

"Tell me about the zoo," Thor suggests, holding his brother’s mitten-encased hand as they - flopped out on the balcony chaises, looking out across the snowy street - relax after their meal. "Tell me something _good_ about it," he amends, shivering as he thinks back to the roaring dream lion.

"The zoo," Loki echoes. "The zoo was amazing."

~

For the better part of an hour his brother tells him story after story about their trips to the zoo. At first, Thor finds himself pretty much unable to recall any of it, but – as Loki weaves a bright, moving tapestry full of rich detail and charming anecdotes – he realizes he’s actually remembering more and more.

“The sheep,” he adds, excitedly, as Loki talks about a rocky exhibit they’d apparently both loved. “Bighorn sheep, I think they’re called. Man, those things could climb.” He can picture them clearly, with their disproportionately huge curved horns and their fuzzy white backsides. “Do you remember how we wanted to take one home and let it live on the roof of the garage?”

Loki’s eyes are bright in the glow of the small candle he’s set on the table between their chaises. “Yes! We were going to let it eat our broccoli.” He snickers. “I don’t think mom was particularly taken with our logic.”

 _Mom_. His brother hasn’t called Frigga that in ages. Thor wants to ask about it, wants to ask if being adopted was horribly hard, but Loki seems happy for once and he certainly doesn’t want to spoil that. He makes himself laugh softly instead. “No, definitely not. Although I think she liked it better than your idea about stealing one of those big lizards.”

“The monitor lizard,” Loki agrees. “I loved that thing. It looked like it had been made of beads.”

“It was gross,” Thor offers, laughing for real this time.

“It was _cool_ ,” Loki disagrees. “Hush, or I’ll buy us one.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Thor huffs, half-teasing.

“Try me,” Loki says, twisting in his chaise to lean in close, so close he has to look from one eye to the other and back again. “I could make you feed it raw eggs and frozen baby mice.”

“Ugh.” Thor shudders. “Siffy would never set foot in our place again.”

His brother sighs. “Okay, okay. I suppose you win.” He shifts, sitting square again, and gives Thor’s hand a quick squeeze. “There’s a good zoo here, you know. Could we go? Or would that be too weird?”

It doesn’t sound weird. “We can give it a try,” Thor tells Loki. He shivers. “Can we go inside,” he asks, looking over at his brother. Loki’s breath comes out in little puffs of fog. “I’m freezing.”

“Sure.” Loki blows against his own padded thumb to neatly extinguish the candle. He stands, tugging at Thor’s hands and smirking. “I’m sure I can warm you up.”

As Thor stands, though, Loki’s mood shifts again. “It’s nice to think back to good times,” he says. “Back when I wasn’t just obsessing about using,” he elaborates, at which point Thor- well, wishes he hadn’t. Loki shrugs. “Or dying.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a lot of baggage to unpack. At least they're trying?

"Is that what made Loki crazy," Thor blurts out, unintentionally rude. He'd cut Ginny off right in the middle of a sentence. "I'm sorry," he offers quickly as his brother snorts. It’s loud in the sudden silence. "I didn't mean- I- it just hit me."

"Loki," Ginny reminds gently. "It's important to be respectful." Thor winces, expecting the first thing out of Loki's mouth to be a pointed observation about what just happened.

It isn't.

"Sorry, that was aimed at myself," his brother explains, a little less nastily than usual. Loki hates joint counseling and rarely – as in _never_ \- lets any opportunity to make that abundantly clear pass unnoticed. This is way out of character for him. "I was laughing at the idea of anyone making me crazy."

"Apology accepted," Ginny says, looking first at Loki and then at Thor "From both of you. This is very difficult territory and I do appreciate how eager you seem to be to support one another as you’re working your way through it."

Thor nods. He licks his lips, then changes his mind and wipes them with one hand. He sneaks a quick look at Loki; his brother is nodding as well. This may be the first time in their many visits to this office that they’ve managed to act as a _team_.

"To answer your question, Thor,” Ginny adds, “it isn't that simple. There isn't as much conclusive science behind it as we might like," she explains, gesturing with her pencil to include all of them, "but we do know things that interfere with attachment and feelings of safety in the very youngest children can have widespread, longstanding impact. Does that fit with what you've learned, Loki?"

His brother shrug-nods. "Mostly."

"I don't think we can reliably say the way your parents – the way just Odin, even - treated you as children _made_ Loki mentally ill," she continues, turning back to Thor, "but we do know it was probably a contributing factor."

Thor clenches his jaw. "I was always told it was his _criminal genes_ ," he tells her, with air-quotes. Which he immediately regrets, badly. Rather than taking offense, though, Loki just hums quietly.

"Genetics are likely a factor too," she agrees, "but any one of these explanations taken on its own is at best a gross oversimplification."

Thor huffs. For this, he thinks he would actually prefer simple. "I can't forgive him, knowing that without him Loki might have been okay."

"I _am_ okay," his brother points out quietly. "Right now I might be better off than you."

Thor can't argue. It's frightening, especially because he isn't certain how much is attributable to himself getting worse versus Loki getting better. “You know what I mean,” he grumbles. “You’ve suffered through a lot. You still do. _We_ do. And it kills me to think it’s because- it’s something that could have been avoided if our parents had just- just fucking done _this_.” He spreads his arms wide, to encompass the three of them… the couch, Ginny’s desk and chair.

“I doubt it’s that easy,” Loki says softly.

“Thor,” Ginny cuts in to redirect the discussion before he can answer. “If you don’t mind, I want to spend a few minutes talking through something you said earlier.”

He takes a deep breath and nods. Things have been going unusually well in here tonight – he and his brother have actually been interacting cordially, like people – and he doesn’t want to do anything to disturb their tenuous new balance.

“Thank you,” she says, twisting her pencil to advance the lead. Her perfect neutral polish catches the light. Thor takes a quick look at his brother’s different-but-equally-pretty fingers. He wants to take Loki’s hand but that might be pushing his luck just a little too far; his own fingers twitch, but he makes himself sit still. “You mentioned before that you feel like you can’t forgive Odin,” Ginny reminds him, “knowing the effect he may have had on Loki’s development.”

“Mm-hm,” Thor agrees. He frowns at her, a bit puzzled as to where this is all going and not at all sure he’s going to like it when it gets there.

“You’re not under any obligation to forgive him,” she tells him. “You may reach a point where letting go of this feels like the right thing to do, or you may not.” She makes a quick note, then sets her pencil down. “But it’s all up to you.”

“Mm,” Loki hums from a couple of feet away. Thor remembers his brother saying something along these lines when they got the letter. It didn’t make sense to him then and it still doesn’t make sense now.

“But Odin wrote-…” He trails off, feeling idiotic. Like he’s the only one not in the club somehow. “I guess I don’t get it.”

Ginny stands and turns in one smooth motion. Her perfectly tailored suit is, as always, pristine and wrinkle-free. She crosses to the bookshelf behind her desk and pulls out an ancient-looking, faded book with a gray-black cover. Thor can read the big print - _Alcoholics Anonymous_ , in an old-fashioned white script that would be right at home on the façade of their fancy apartment building – all the way from the couch. Next to him, his brother groans.

She smiles. “I’m not going to ask either one of you to read this,” she assures them; Loki turns to face Thor, catches his eye, and mouths _thank fucking god_. “I just wanted to show it to you, Thor, since it sounds like it’s not something you’ve read before.”

Why would he? He shakes his head. “I haven’t.”

“You’re welcome to borrow it you’d like,” she offers. At the very edge of his vision Thor can see his brother making a warding sign. “But I really just wanted to make sure you knew that it’s about a process… a process which involves the addict and his or her god.” She sits back down, scooting her chair smoothly forward, and sets the book on the closest corner. “Some of the steps, like the one about making amends, involve other people, but the whole process is pretty one-sided.” She tilts her head. “There isn’t an obligation on your part to respond. It’s not even implied,” she explains when Thor wrinkles his nose.

He can’t help it; he’s skeptical. Everything is implied. Always.

“In other words,” Loki cuts in, “he can say what he wants and you get to take it or leave it. It really has nothing to do with you.”

“Then why do I feel so _guilty_ ,” Thor asks.

“That’s another complicated question,” Ginny acknowledges. “The short answer is _because you’ve been conditioned_ to think saying the right thing is what’s expected of you.”

“Hah,” Loki says.

Thor gives him a mildly dirty look. “What,” his brother asks him, shrugging. “I’m crazy.”

~

Afterwards, rather than fighting all the way home like they almost always do, Thor and Loki hold hands walking back to the car. When they get there, they embrace for a long, long time. “This is so hard,” Thor tells his brother.

Loki nuzzles into Thor’s hair and presses a cold kiss against the warm skin just below his ear. “I know.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some dreams are bad; some are just troubling.

_”Loki?” Thor calls his brother’s name, loudly, from the foot of the big staircase. “Loki?”_

_He turns back to survey the mudroom. Loki’s black-and-green backpack leans sloppily against the storage cubbies where the two of them are still, despite how they’re no longer little children sporting animal face mittens and runny noses, expected to put away their things. His brother’s battered black puffer jacket is in a heap on the floor, along with one boot and a full-to-bursting notebook. There are papers lying everywhere._

_All in all it looks a bit like Loki exploded, and that’s never good._

_His brother has been suffering a fair amount of- maybe it’s not quite bullying, but it’s the kind of teasing that’s malicious and bent on humiliation. It’s kind of telling, from Thor’s perspective, that not one of the perpetrators has the balls to do any of it in front of him; as captain of the football team, he himself enjoys near-godlike status. Apparently no one really likes taking chances._

_Even so, he knows shit’s happening. Sometimes he comes into the bathroom just in time to see the end of a bit of pushing and jostling… or around a corner slowly enough to catch a group of students – his teammates, often, or the assholes from the swim team – questioning Loki’s sexuality or gender or sanity. Or all three. His brother laughs it off, but Thor knows it grates just the same. It wears away at his brother._

_Thor worries._

_“Loki?” He hurtles up the staircase, two and then three steps at a time. His brother’s shirt lies crumpled on the soft grey runner, followed by Loki’s jeans. The bathroom door is just ajar._

_Thor, heart in his throat, travels the full length of the hall in three long strides._

_He pulls up just short of shoving the door open, though. The shower is running, full bore. As Thor peers into the thin sliver of emptiness that separates the door and its frame, a puff of steam wafts out and drifts past him. Thor sniffs. It smells delicious, like peaches and- and ginger._

_If he presses his face against the door he can just, with one eye, see inside. The air in the bathroom is thick with steam. Loki has yet again foregone the tub in favor of the fancy full-body shower their parents had installed last year, after a trip to an extremely posh hotel on the Cote d’Azur had – as their mom had described it – ruined them for regular showers forever. From their pictures Thor could tell everything, from the gorgeous setting to the equally spectacular topless sunbathers, had been amazing. Sadly, the shower was the only bit they opted to replicate._

_Apparently being old makes you boring._

_Thor manages another silent sniff. He can just make out the long, slender stretch of his brother’s side as Loki - both hands up, water sluicing over him - works shampoo purposefully through his mess of soaking hair._

_In combination the sound of the water and the swirling steam are mesmerizing. At least, that’s what Thor tells himself. It’s not his brother’s lean body that has him standing there transfixed. It’s not the way Loki’s hands move, fingers raking through his dark hair and palms slicking it back. Fingertips kneading soap into pale skin flushed pink in the heat. Hands smoothing over prominent ribs and hollow belly alike, making their way down to drag through the dark wet curls that-…_

_All at once the steam lets up. It’s just for a second, if that long, but that’s more than enough. Too much, really. Thor catches a very, very clear glimpse of Loki soaping things no brother should be eyeing with such naked hunger… and looks up abruptly, only to lock eyes with the owner of the hands… and the things. Then the air shifts, and his brother’s face blurs._

_Thor could almost have written it off as a trick of the light – the hallway behind him is dark in comparison to the brightly lit bathroom – if it hadn’t been for how Loki’d winked at him. As a slow smile spreads over his brother’s hazy face, Thor turns and runs._

_~_

_“You like to look,” Loki points out later in the afternoon, when the two of them are slouched together playing video games in the den._

_“At what,” Thor asks, feigning ignorance. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, weirdo.”_

_Loki doesn’t answer; he simply licks his own lips and smiles._

_Thor, face instantly hot and jeans nearly as quickly painfully tight at the memory of his brother writhing under the spray, feels the sudden and uncontrollable urge to- to go fetch something from the kitchen. “Be right back,” he says as he drops his controller and hops up off the couch. When he hurries out into the hall-_

_-the floor dissolves into nothing and he’s falling-._

“Ahh!” Thor throws both arms out to catch himself, only to really wake up just as he accidentally knocks Mac half off the couch arm. The cat lets out a little squawk and just manages to right himself without getting dumped.

“Sorry,” Thor tells Mac, holding both hands up in surrender. “I dreamed I was falling. I didn’t mean to bonk you.”

Mac lashes his orange whip of a tail. Thor laughs. “I’m starting to think it’s a good thing you aren’t going to be getting all that much bigger.”

“Another nightmare?” Loki pokes his head in from the kitchen. He looks worried. Worried and tired. “Are you okay?”

Thor sighs. None of this is easy to explain and he’s not even sure he wants to give it a try. “It- it wasn’t a nightmare, exactly.” He’s uncomfortably aware his tight pants weren’t entirely imaginary. “More childhood stuff. Later, late middle school. I think.” He can feel his face flushing. “What are you making in there,” he asks, trying to change the subject.

“Lasagna,” Loki explains. He has a long smear of tomato sauce along one cheek, and Thor is more than a little tempted to call him over and lick his face clean. “So, what was your not-a-nightmare about? Was it fun?” Loki smiles. It spreads slowly across his whole face, not markedly differently than it had in the dream.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Thor tells his brother.

Loki laughs, a short little bark. “Oh, so it has to do with lusting after me.”

“Maybe it was about doing my homework,” Thor huffs.

His brother grins even more broadly. “ _Homework_. Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

Thor gets up from the couch, jostling Marci – who’d been curled against his hip, quick to fall back to sleep despite all the movement – and turns away. “I said I didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Suit yourself,” Loki quips.

When Thor twists to look back at his brother, it turns out he’s alone. From somewhere in the kitchen, he can hear the splashing sound of water running.


End file.
